The invention relates generally to a method for performing design trade-off and in particular to a method for performing design trade-off in response to critical to quality parameters. Design trade-off is normally performed whenever many options are available for different components of a system. During the design of the system, many alternatives can exist for each component (different brands, different technologies, different manufacturing processes, etc.). The field of systems engineering includes techniques for performing design trade-off, i.e., comparing all possible alternatives in terms of their suitability to the system objectives. In the design for six sigma (DFSS) process, system objectives are represented by critical to quality parameters or CTQ""s. The critical to quality parameters reflect aspects of the product needed to meet or exceed customer expectations. There is a perceived need in the art for a method and tool for assisting a user in performing design trade-off in response to critical to quality parameters.
An exemplary embodiment of the invention is directed to a method for performing design trade-off. A plurality of critical to quality parameters corresponding to features of the design are obtained. A plurality of design specifications, each design specification corresponding to one of the critical to quality parameters, are also obtained. A plurality of designs are obtained where each design includes a plurality of design values and each design value corresponds to one of the critical to quality parameters. The design values are compared to the design specifications for each of the plurality of designs. A total score is generated for each design in response to the comparison.